


who was the you (who endured the sad story)

by the_cosmos_lonely (dheiress)



Series: and then they were all eldritch horrors (oh god, they were all eldritch horrors) [3]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future, Body Horror, Eldritch, Established Relationship, Head of Institute Martin Blackwood, Institute Husbands, M/M, Nostalgia, Post-Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-26
Updated: 2020-06-26
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:47:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24923326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dheiress/pseuds/the_cosmos_lonely
Summary: He lies prostrate on the floor where the blood has dried and the rot has grown, surrounded by brittle papers once filled with words now lost to faded ink and fresh mulch.(They say there's a monster sleeping under the Institute, just waiting to be awakened to start apocalypse anew.)
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Series: and then they were all eldritch horrors (oh god, they were all eldritch horrors) [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1756762
Comments: 14
Kudos: 113





	who was the you (who endured the sad story)

**Author's Note:**

> Polished and cross-posted from Tumblr.
> 
> Title from All The Sad Stories by Jessica Law

They say the Institute is a very young building with a very old history.

They say if you come in early or stay late enough you will hear the faint murmurs of different voices talking over one another echoing from the crevices and cracks in the floors and walls.

They say there is an incessant feeling of being watched whenever you traverse its corridors, as if there is someone ceaselessly watching you from the unlit corners.

They say there's another Institute, an older one, a ruin of concrete and steel bones warped beyond recognition by time beneath the foundations of this Institute they know.

They say there is monster sleeping there, just waiting to be awakened to start apocalypse anew.

So they say.

* * *

He lies prostrate on the floor where the blood has dried and the rot has grown, surrounded by brittle papers once filled with words now lost to faded ink and fresh mulch.

Still, the voices surround him, a chorus of stories long ago told. They chatter, they weep, they laugh, they scream at him their static vocalisations he has long ago memorised. 

He has felt neither sunlight nor fresh breeze upon his face for decades, his muscles long ago atrophied. But he is no longer a creature bound by mortality so he lives. Not breathing, not with blood pumping through his veins but he endures still, a pool of consciousness as stagnant as the stories and voices that accompany him in his immortality.

Sometimes, fresh stories _(statements_ , someone says) reach his ears like lost moths to a dim lamp and he can take a breath again and feel his eyelashes fluttering against his sallow skin.

Sometimes, he catches familiar words (you need to stop swanning around, eyes peeled, Georgie said, good job boss, Calliope?) from even more familiar voices that make his heart beat for a short while and his lips twist into a smile.

Sometimes, his favourite times, both of those things happen at once.

"Have you heard the stories they say about us?"

The man is slower now, burdened with age and bones slowly falling to gravity as all things do, but he knows the cadence of those steps, the heaves of those breaths, and he holds out a hand for the man to reach for. His hand is taken and furtive kisses like butterflies are placed upon each eyelid that has closed in contentment.

Which ones, he thought, I've heard many stories today.

He thinks the man is smiling and that made him smile too.

"The ones about the tunnels and the ones about how lucky my spouse must be because I make such good tea. "

Yes, he thought. He is lucky even if he could no longer drink tea. His mass, a liquid ever slightly shifting, flows towards the man's body and for one moment of blissful eternity he is held lovingly and nothing else matters.  
  


* * *

Director Blackwood, his silver hair and soft eyes and softer smile a respectable statement of his age, simply shakes his head in good humor and assures anyone who asks, "There are no monsters under our Institute."

**Author's Note:**

> No, this is still not the Anastasia AU, sorry.


End file.
